CNET Editors' Rating

The BadPanasonic's online media portal is still disappointing; not the cheapest player in the world.

The Bottom LineThe Panasonic DMP-BDT310 is a great Blu-ray player with enough features to keep even the most enthusiastic users entertained for a long time. It's not the cheapest machine on the market, though.

8.3 Overall

Review Sections

Panasonic's top-of-the-range DMP-BDT310 offers everything you could possibly hope for in a Blu-ray player. A range of networking options, 3D support and a pair of HDMI outputs make this £230 machine seem like the ideal choice for a home-cinema enthusiast. But how does it compare to similar models from Sony and Samsung, which are also well specified and sometimes cheaper?

Small package

Even though it's small, the beautiful DMP-BDT310 doesn't skimp on features. It offers two HDMI outputs, a pair of USB sockets, and the usual uninspiring composite video RCA jacks.

On the front, there's a drop-down cover that conceals some controls and one of the USB sockets. There's also a classy display that shows crucial information, such as how long you've been watching a Blu-ray movie for.

On the top of the player, you'll find a 'wave-sensitive panel' that allows you to open the disc tray without touching the player. We like this because we're monumental geeks, but we don't know what actual need it serves. Are members of the public entirely sick of pressing the eject button, and on the verge of some sort of mass revolution? We just don't know.

Panasonic's new graphical menus are very pleasant. Call us superficial, but the new interface makes us feel better about the player as a whole.

Care for some speed?

We used to moan on and on and on about slow disc-load times. We're still not thrilled that it takes tens of seconds to go from inserting a disc to it playing. Even so, Panasonic has now managed to get a disc playing between 10 and 20 seconds after it's inserted. That's a significant improvement on past efforts.

Viera Cast redux

This year, Panasonic is changing the name of its Viera Cast online service to Viera Connect on its TVs. The company's not doing the same in the case of its Blu-ray players, however -- the DMP-BDT310 still accesses Viera Cast. Note that Panasonic has said -- but not promised -- some of its Blu-ray players may switch to the new Connect service at some point, via an upgrade.

The online features of the DMP-BDT310 are still similar to those on the company's new TVs. We still find them rather lacking too, especially when compared to the services offered on Sony's Blu-ray players -- there's no access to BBC iPlayer, for example. One feature we are totally sold on, however, is Skype video calling.

Skype is the future

We reckon Skype is almost a killer feature, in fact, because the popular and free VoIP service allows friends and families to connect over long distances. Set-up is a simple matter of getting the DMP-BDT310 on your home network over either Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and plugging in the optional USB camera, which has built-in microphones. Once that's done, you pop in your Skype account details and you're ready to call.

You'll need a good connection to use Skype. We found the overall quality of the service to be decent, once we were connected. It's a really great way to stay in touch, and we can see this being a big deal on TVs in the future.